


What's Lost Can Be Found Again

by eadreytheiptscray



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: A proud product of the Pacific Rim discord server, Alternate Universe - Atlantis: The Lost Empire Fusion, F/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, not canon compliant dates or ages, the jaegers are ships, the kaiju are people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18415040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadreytheiptscray/pseuds/eadreytheiptscray
Summary: [A Pacific Rim-Atlantis AU]Raleigh Becket is eager to make something of himself after losing his brother at sea. Unfortunately, no one at the Smithsonian Institute takes him seriously when he says he can find the lost city of Atlantis. An offer from a wealthy collector named Stacker Pentecost might just be the opportunity he's been waiting for.





	1. Five Years & Four Months Earlier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inthedrift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthedrift/gifts).



**FEBRUARY 28, 1909**

 

The winter air pierced his lungs likes shards of glass, but Raleigh Becket kept running. He'd barely slept the night before and was regretting wearing such a threadbare coat out in the snow, but he couldn't wait to get to the wharf.

_Yancy's coming home._

Five years his senior, Yancy Becket was more than a brother to him. He'd stepped in as a surrogate father after their mother died of cholera when they were kids. Plus, Yancy had what Raleigh considered the greatest jobs in the world: archaeologist, linguist, and distinguished adventurer.

Somewhere above the cobblestone streets and below the brick chimneys, a church clock chimed six. Raleigh had two hours of fresh air and freedom before he'd be minding the temperamental boiler in the bowels of the Smithsonian Institute.

Raleigh slowed to a brisk walk as he approached the wharf. There was no doubt in his mind when the _S.S. Danger_ would be arriving—he'd memorized his brother's latest postcard by heart:

 

_Dear Raleigh,_

_We've made a refueling stop in London. After spending so much time in the arctic, I forgot what civilization looked—or smelled—like. Next time I lead an expedition, I'm taking you with me. You should look up from your dusty textbooks once in a while._

_The_ S.S. Danger _is expected to arrive in Washington, D.C. February 28. Our finds are too important (and numerous!) to discuss in these letters, so I'm eager to tell you in person._

_See you soon, little brother._

_Yancy_

 

Raleigh bounced on the balls of his feet as he stood by the harbormaster's shanty, craning his neck to make out the familiar mast of the _S.S. Danger_ through the snow and fog. Thirty minutes passed, then another. All too soon, it was time for work.

Disheartened, Raleigh trudged to the Smithsonian Institute steps and descended into the boiler room, his thoughts drifting back to his brother. At 6 p.m. on the dot, he raced out of the museum and back to the wharf. But there was no sign of the  _S.S. Danger_ in the harbor.

Several hours later, the snow stopped swirling around the city, and Raleigh ventured out from underneath the shanty's thatched roof. But there was still no sign of Yancy's steamliner.

Night descended over the wharf, and with it came a bitter chill.

Still no Yancy.

Raleigh barely slept that night, or the next. After three days and still no sign of the _S.S. Danger_ or Yancy Becket, despair started to worm its way into Raleigh's mind. He finally mustered up the courage to ask the harbormaster where his brother's ship could possibly be.

The man's words would ring in his ears for the next five years and four months:

"Sorry, sonny. That ship was lost at sea."


	2. The Offer

**JUNE 5, 1914**

 

Muted summer sunlight streamed through Raleigh's window, bathing the dark room in amber light. Raleigh grunted and threw his pillow over his head, but only for a minute. 

His pocket watch read 6:30 a.m. In ten hours, he'd be in Ms. Liwen Shao's office, trying to convince her and the museum board to fund his search for the Shepherd's Journal. He had a lot of work to do before then.

His bare feet hit the warped wooden floors first, and his mattress springs squeaked as he pushed himself out of bed. Stumbling into his Sunday best, he accidentally woke up Tendo Choi, his roommate, who blinked back sleep with bleary eyes.

"'Morning, Becket boy." Tendo propped himself up on an elbow and stifled a yawn. "Big day?"

"Meeting with Ms. Shao," he said, trying his best to fix his hair and brush his teeth at the same time. "You finally going to ask for Alison's hand today?"

Tendo grinned like a smitten schoolboy. "That's the plan."

Raleigh smiled, remembering how just a year ago, Tendo had come back from what should have been just another private rendezvous with that same love-struck look on his face. It hadn't taken long for the two to start courting.

"Good luck," Raleigh replied sincerely, shrugging on his threadbare blazer and racing out of their shared boarding house room. "See you later!"

"Same to you!" Tendo called as Raleigh shut the door.

* * *

At the Smithsonian Institute, Raleigh busied himself by setting up a makeshift lecture hall in his office—nothing more than the museum's boiler room. The space wasn't what he had imagined at first, but it had started growing on him. As long as he kept the boiler purring like a kitten, Ms. Shao didn't mind what other "flights of fancy" (her words, not his) he chased in his spare time.

If he was right—and he knew he was—the Shepherd's Journal wasn't one.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen and Ms. Shao," Raleigh began sheepishly, addressing the busts, indigenous masks, and potted plants before him. "I'd like to thank the board for taking the time to hear my proposal."

He allowed himself to picture, just for a moment, all eyes in the conference room eagerly trained on him. Some of the board members were leaning forward in their leather chairs. Even Ms. Shao had traded her customary scowl for a look of pure curiosity.

Raleigh snapped his eyes open. No time for daydreaming. "Now, you've all heard the legend of Atlantis: a technologically advanced civilization located somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. According to our friend Plato here"—he tapped the bust next to him for good measure—"the city was struck by some cataclysmic event and sank into the sea."

He pulled out the note cards he'd painstakingly created in the weeks prior. Giving his audience something to look at would give him a better chance of earning their attention. And funding for his expedition.

"Some of you may ask, 'why Atlantis? It's pure fantasy!' Well, that is where you'd be wrong."

Raleigh flipped through the cards for his motionless audience: photographs of the Egyptian pyramids, hieroglyphics on a pottery shard, carvings on a palace wall. "Thousands of years before the Egyptians," he continued, "the Atlanteans had electricity, advanced medicine, the power of flight—'impossible' you say, but no, not for them."

Power, he figured, was his speech's selling point. Atlantis had had enough to flourish for centuries, which is more than modern civilizations could ever say about coal or steam. Whoever got their hands on the Atlanteans' power source would become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Mr. Rockefeller, eat your heart out.

The telephone rang, interrupting Raleigh's train of thought. He grimaced as he caught himself about to apologize to the statues and masks and plants before him. 

"Cartography and linguistics," he said into the receiver, "Raleigh Becket speak—"

It was Hannibal Chau, the Institute's game collector. Complaining about the one degree temperature fluctuation in his upstairs office. Raleigh sighed and strode through his captive audience to the temperamental boiler.

He could do this routine without thinking: twist, twist, twist, _ping_ , _clonk_! The boiler hiccuped before sputtering back to life. Raleigh set the wrench down and waded back through his audience to the telephone, where Mr. Chau muttered something about him being slow and incompetent. What else was new? 

"You're welcome," Raleigh muttered as he hung up the receiver. Sighing and running his fingers through his hair, he turned back to his audience. "Now, where were we?"

* * *

An hour later, satisfied with the speech he'd been practicing for months (cues, inflections, and all), Raleigh found himself back at his desk—nothing more than a free bit of counter space that should've belonged to some tools or replacement boiler parts.

There were maps, nautical charts, and loose sheets of paper covering every inch of the wooden surface. An old cuckoo clock, one he'd dug out of the trash and fixed himself, hung on the wall. And in the corner sat a crinkled photograph in a cracked wooden frame.

Yancy's grin caught his eye. He would always be 17 years old in that frozen moment in time, in front of the steamship _Cherno_ next to the 12-year-old brother who idolized him. That picture had been taken years ago, right before Yancy's first expedition, and a year after their mother died. At that time, though it hadn't felt like it, their luck had been starting to turn thanks to someone Yancy only referred to as Sensei.

Some days, Yancy's death— _disappearance_ , Raleigh reminded himself—hit too close to home. Today was not one of those days.

Raleigh smiled at the picture in his hands, sinking into memories of the day the _S.S. Cherno_ sailed out of port to worlds unknown. Raleigh had stayed at the wharf until he couldn't see the steam ship on the horizon, and he'd skulked around the harbor for days until his brother finally came home. Yancy had looked exhausted, tanned, and disheveled, but he had been grinning from ear to ear.

A _thump_ of an internal memo tumbling down the chute distracted him, and Raleigh stuffed the photo into his knapsack.

 _Dear Mr. Becket,_ it read, _this is to inform you that your meeting today has been moved from 4:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m._

Raleigh glanced at the cuckoo clock—it was five past four. "What?"

Another memo tumbled down the chute:

_Dear Mr. Becket, due to your absence, the board has voted to reject your proposal. Have a nice weekend. - Ms. Shao's office_

Rage surged through his veins. "No, no, no, they can't do this to me!"

Raleigh snatched the note cards and maps closest to him before bolting out the door, racing up the stairs to the opulent floor belonging to the museum executives. Ms. Shao and her associates were trickling out of the conference room down the hall just as Raleigh raced onto the landing.

"Ms. Shao!"

The woman in white snapped her head around. The rest of the board members panicked; they scrambled for the nearest exit—an empty office, the other stairwell at the end of the hall, Mr. Chau's taxidermy collection room.

Ms. Shao pressed the elevator call button a couple of times, but Raleigh had caught up with her by the time the doors opened. She never once dropped that impassive facade while Raleigh attempted to cram his one-hour speech into three minutes, but it was clear that she was irritated with him.

Despite all of his pleas, all of his facts, she remained unmoved. Raleigh was practically red in the face by the time he'd followed her out to the car.

"Don't end up like your brother," Ms. Shao said before stepping into the cab. "You have so much potential. Don't waste it chasing fairy tales."

Threatening to resign didn't move her, either. She and Raleigh both knew that his only chances of making something of himself were in the boiler room of the Smithsonian Institute.

And that truth hurt.

* * *

Of course it would rain on Raleigh's long walk home. Rain soaked his threadbare blazer and dripped into his knapsack, running the ink on all of his note cards and maps of Atlantis.

Not that it mattered anymore. The museum board wouldn't fund his expedition. He was going nowhere.

Feeling soggy, dejected, and exhausted, Raleigh shouldered open the boarding house door with plans to sleep for the rest of the evening.

But there was someone waiting for him in the foyer. An attractive someone—she had curly blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a beauty mark just below her eye. Half siren and half gorgon.

Raleigh gulped. "Who… who are you?"

"My name is Helga Sinclair," the woman said, standing and extending a gloved hand. "I'm acting on behalf of my employer, who has a most intriguing proposition for you."

He'd nodded vigorously when she'd mention the words "funded expedition" and "wealthy collector" in the same sentence, and he found himself in the back of a luxurious car a few minutes later.

Raleigh gaped when they arrived at a mansion in the Washington suburbs. Trees flanked both sides of the French-inspired chateau, which was even more opulent inside.

An ornate Oriental rug ran from the French front doors to the end of the hallway. Gold-framed Renaissance masterpieces hung on the walls. Sculptures from seemingly every country in Africa sat on pedestals as far as the eye could see.

Raleigh was so distracted by the private collection that he only caught parts of Ms. Sinclair's words:

"—will stand unless asked to be seated. Keep your sentences short and to the point. Are we clear?"

Raleigh gulped as the elevator doors opened onto a massive study.

The space was larger than the Smithsonian Institute's board room and boiler room combined. In the light of a roaring fire, he saw books covering every subject known to man stacked neatly on bookcases that reached the ceiling. An aquarium took up the far wall, and inside were coelacanths— _that's not possible, those have been extinct for millions of years_ , Raleigh thought.

Extinct creatures weren't the only surprise waiting for him.

"Yancy Becket," a deep voice said from the shadows, "was the finest explorer I ever met."

Raleigh whirled around. Sitting in a winged armchair by the fire was an elderly gentleman dressed in a cerulean suit. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Becket," the man said, extending a hand.

Raleigh shook it. The confusion he felt must've manifested on his face, because the stranger smiled sadly.

"Stacker Pentecost," he clarified. "Your brother was instrumental in so many of my expeditions: Alaska, Montana, Iceland… He spoke of you often."

Yancy hadn't talked about this man before—Raleigh would remember a name like Stacker Pentecost. Instead, he nodded slowly.

Fortunately, the man didn't ask for recognition. "Look over on that table."

On the table in front of the fireplace—which was almost as wide as the room Raleigh and Tendo shared—sat a thick package bound in yellowing cloth. There was a message written on the postcard tacked to it:

_For Raleigh, with love - Yancy_

His eyes stung, and Raleigh swiped at them with his damp shirt sleeve. "It's… from my brother," he said incredulously.

Mr. Pentecost nodded. "He brought that package to me years ago. He said, 'Sensei, if anything happens to me, give this to my brother when he's ready.'"

Two thoughts overwhelmed Raleigh in the span of two seconds. The first: _So Mr. Pentecost is the Sensei that Yancy always talked about_. And the second, as he opened the package: _This… this is the Shepherd's Journal._

Mr. Pentecost cleared his throat to break the silence.

Raleigh found his voice, but he couldn't pry his eyes from the relic in his hands. "It can't be. Mr. Pentecost, this journal... this is the key to finding the lost city of Atlantis."

The man chuckled as he shuffled over to a table by the aquarium. "Atlantis… I wasn't born yesterday, son."

But Raleigh didn't hear him. He was too busy thumbing through the ancient tome. "Look at this: Coordinates, clues, cultural details—it's all right here. We can use this journal to find Atlantis."

"It's gibberish."

That got Raleigh's attention. He clenched his jaw. "No, sir, it's just written in an ancient dialect. I've studied it for years—I can read what it says."

"It's probably a fake."

Raleigh snapped the book shut. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Mr. Pentecost," he said as evenly as he could, "my brother would've known if this were a fake."

But an unwelcome thought wormed itself into Raleigh's head:  _If Yancy had the real journal this whole time, why didn't he find Atlantis himself?_

Raleigh shook his head. He'd chased this dream for years. One way or another, he would find out for sure if Atlantis existed. "I would stake everything I own that this is the genuine Shepherd's Journal."

Mr. Pentecost _harrumphed_. "Let's say I believe you. What are you going to do about it?"

Raleigh stalked over to the table and began pacing in front of the aquarium. "I'll get funding," he said. "I'll go to the museum—"

"They'll never believe you."

Inhale. Exhale. "I'll show them that this is the real thing—"

"Like you did today."

"Yes! No—wait, how did you—? Oh, nevermind." Raleigh pinched the bridge of his nose. "I will find Atlantis on my own… even if I have to rent a rowboat!"

Only the crackling fire and gurgling aquarium filled the otherwise silent study. And then Mr. Pentecost smiled.

"Congratulations, Mr. Becket. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. But forget the rowboat, son."

Mr. Pentecost produced a cloth-covered object from underneath the table. Before Raleigh could theorize what it was, Mr. Pentecost lifted the cloth to reveal an intricate model submarine, along with miniature airships and off-road vehicles. All designed for a legendary expedition.

"We'll travel in style."


	3. The Scouts

**THE FIRST SCOUTING DAY**

 

_The sky's a crisp blue, almost as bright as the crystal around her mother's neck. A breeze plays with Mako's hair. Flower petals dance in the wind. Spring is in the air, and Mako is enjoying the beautiful morning with her parents outside the palace walls._

_A shadow creeps over the street. The city freezes. Then Mako sees it—the wall of water. All she can do is stare, even as alarm bells ring out around the city. The sound hurts her ears._

_"Mako!"_

_Her mother's voice pulls her out of her trance. She clutches her mother's skirt as a sea of people surges around them, and the two fight the tide to reach Mako's father by the palace doors. In the chaos, Mako's doll slips through her fingers. She can't abandon her on the street—_

_"Mako, leave it. There's no time." Her mother's kind brown eyes flash with anger—or is that fear? Mako had never seen that look on her mother's face before._

_She turns back around, but she can't see her doll anywhere. Tears well up in her eyes. A flash of brilliant blue, however, distracts her._

_The wind picks up, shoving Mako to the ground. Her hand slips out of her mother's grasp, and she whirls around in a panic. Her mother is gone._

_"Mama!" She squints against the bright light. That's when she notices her bracelet is missing. But before she can look around for it, her father's strong arms close around her. Mako catches a glimpse of her mother, floating high in the air, before her father shields her eyes from the light._

_"Close your eyes, Mako," he says. "Look away!"_

_The city shakes. The world goes dark. And then, silence._

* * *

Mako snapped her eyes open. Blue light pierced through the darkness and pooled onto the stone floor below, but it only took her a few seconds to find its source. The crystal around her neck cast long shadows on the walls around her room.

 _Another nightmare. It wouldn't be a scouting day otherwise_ , she thought bitterly. Slowly, she uncurled herself, sat up, and swung her feet over her hammock. At least she'd get to venture outside the city with her childhood friends for a little while, even if they were only doing so to scavenge for food.

 _Time to get going_. She sucked in a breath as her bare feet hit the cool floor.

After whispering goodbye to her still-sleeping father, Mako grabbed her net, mask, and spear before slipping out into the dark morning. Her fellow scouts were already waiting by the hidden entrance to the outside world.

"Took you long enough, Princess," Cheung called as she approached. Hu wasted no time in lecturing him about the proper ways to address the royal family. Mako just rolled her eyes.

Of the three, Hu was the most traditional. He'd always treated Mako like royalty, even addressing her as Princess when they were kids. She'd hated it. But no matter how many times she'd tried to correct him, he wouldn't call her anything else. It only took a few thousand years, but she'd finally gotten used to it. Well, most of the time.

Cheung, of course, only called her Princess as a joke. The youngest of the triplets, he could get away with treason if he wanted (and if Hu never caught him in the act). And because he was so stubborn, Hu's reprimands would just roll right off Cheung's back. Which was exactly what was happening as Mako climbed up to the overlook.

"Mako." Jin bowed slightly, a small smile on his face. Mako smiled back and nodded at her best friend.

Like her, Jin was quiet and often misunderstood, which was probably why the two of them had been inseparable as kids. Royal duties, unfortunately, had stolen away much of Mako's free time once she'd turned 4,600 years old, so Scouting Days were the only times they could spend any quality time together.

"Ready to go scouting?" She asked Hu and Cheung, who instantly snapped out of their argument to bow low to her—well, Hu did, at least. Cheung just nodded, slipped on his mask, and strutted through the curtain of vines. The other three did the same.

As on every scouting trip, Hu took the lead, followed closely by Cheung. Jin brought up the rear, but he only stayed half a step behind Mako. It had been hundreds of years since anything had charged through the crumbling tunnels after them.

"You had another nightmare, didn't you?" Jin had an uncanny way of telling what was on Mako's mind.

She nodded. There was no sense lying about it. "It's the same every year. I should be used to it by now, but…"

"Losing a parent is never easy."

They set aside their conversation while they climbed over boulders the size of the fish stands at the wharf.

Thousands of years ago, they would find whole armies waiting on the other side of those rocks. Today, they found the clearing empty.

Jin's words echoed in Mako's mind like their footsteps off the cavern walls. She'd been lucky, considering their misfortune. Jin and his brothers had lost their mother, father, younger siblings, and cousins on Judgement Day, since they'd all lived outside the city gates. The triplets just happened to be at the wharf buying fish when the wave swallowed the city whole.

Mako was relatively lucky. She'd only lost her mother. Her father and her closest friends were still alive. And yet she was jealous of the three who had lost their entire families. Because they had what she didn't.

Hu, Jin, and Cheung were inseparable. Like three strands of a braided cord, they were stronger together. They seemed to read each other's minds, too. Mako could recall as kids being fascinated by their synchronized movements as they kicked a ball around, each stepping right into the ball's path before it was ever kicked their way.

They were working in sync now. As Hu glanced left, Cheung glanced right and Jin looked over his shoulder. They'd never said a word, instead acting on some sort of instinct. Mako shivered.

It was in moments like this that Mako realized she didn't connect with anyone on that level, not even Jin. For all that they were best friends, he still treated her like royalty, not like an equal. Besides, he didn't understand her desire to venture out of the city she'd known her whole life, to learn more about the outside world her father never talked about.

When they made camp that night, Mako settled for watching the three brothers entertain each other with stories. Hu started, as always, with the same tale he'd tell on every scouting trip. Cheung would chime in with wild details, earning him a frustrated look from the eldest brother. It was up to Jin to weave both sides of the story together.

She drifted off to sleep that night wondering what it would be like to share as deep of a connection as her friends had with each other.


	4. The Crew

**JUNE 6, 1914**

 

Some adventure.

Flickering candles provided the only light in the cavern Raleigh and the surviving crew members had emerged in. Had it only been 24 hours since he'd left Mr. Pentecost's study clutching the Shepherd's Journal to his chest and clinging to hope of finding the lost city of Atlantis?

So far, he'd met doubt and danger at every turn.

Things had started off well. The _S. S. Eureka_ had launched without incident. Aside from a little seasickness, Raleigh had been feeling giddy. There he was, on a ship bound for Atlantis, and on a mission to finish what his brother started.

The trouble began when the expedition's crew boarded the submersible, _Striker_.

Right away, Raleigh had managed to piss off the geologist, Dr. Geiszler (or Newt, as most of the crew called him behind his back), for knocking into one of his experiments. Raleigh had been rescued by the hulking medical officer, Aleksis Kaidonovsky—likely only because Newt had scurried into a corner at the sight of him. (Kaidonovsky was a young man of few words and many glares, as Raleigh soon found out.)

The presentation to the rest of the crew didn't go well, either. Raleigh felt like a schoolboy again, the target of upperclassmen in the schoolyard and butt of his peers' jokes in the classroom. Only this time, he didn't have Yancy sticking up for him.

And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, something hit _Striker_.

Raleigh would never forget staring into the fiery red eyes of the Leviathan—not a sea serpent, not a sculpture to frighten the superstitious, but a machine of mythical proportions. He was still seeing red when the surviving crew members shoved him down _Striker'_ s narrow corridors and into an escape pod.

Seven hours after waving goodbye to a cheering crowd on the wharf with the rest of the crew, he was in an underwater cavern mourning those same crew members.

"I won't sugar-coat it, ladies and gentlemen," Commander Lyle Rourke said, "we have a crisis on our hands."

Raleigh glanced at the forlorn faces of the scant crew. Out of the 200 that started the journey, only two dozen had made it this far.

"We've been up this creek before, and we've always come through—paddle or no paddle." Commander Rourke stepped away from the water's edge and started up the massive stone staircase. "Looks like all our chances for survival rest with you, Mr. Becket. You and that little book."

 _Great_ , Raleigh thought, as he felt the eyes of two dozen strangers boring into him. The expedition's radio operator voiced his doubt for him:

"We're all gonna die," Herc Hansen muttered.

* * *

Pulling double duty was difficult, considering Raleigh wasn't much use beyond interpreting the Shepherd's Journal. And even then he didn't feel wholly qualified to lead the expedition.

More than once, he'd led the crew down the wrong fork, only to stumble upon a wall of bedrock or a pool of magma or the lair of some slumbering beast. If he felt welcome before, he wasn't feeling like part of the crew anymore.

At least he had work to keep him busy. While the rest of the crew huddled around campfires swapping stories at dinner, Raleigh pored over the Shepherd's Journal by lantern light, reviewing his translations again and again.

On day three, he'd finally figured out where they were going. But something was still bothering him about his translations. Several pages mentioned something called "the heart of Atlantis"—some kind of power source, he figured—but it wasn't explained anywhere in the Journal. Surely a civilization that wanted to preserve itself would describe its life force in detail, right?

Every night as he fumbled around for his tent in the darkness, long after the rest of the crew had gone to sleep, he kept thinking about that question. There had to be an explanation, and he was determined to uncover it.

* * *

A week into the expedition, Raleigh felt like his thankless work in the bowels of the Smithsonian Institute was finally paying off.

"I don't understand," the mechanic, Sasha Vasiliev, grumbled at the smoking innards of the excavator. "I tuned it only this morning."

"Can I—?" But Raleigh couldn't get a word in.

"Rotor is shot," Sasha called to the handful of mechanics standing around. "We need to pull spare from other truck."

While the mechanics helped Sasha, Raleigh poked his head inside the excavator. The boiler looked just like the one at the Institute.

Twist, twist, twist, _ping_ , _clonk_! The excavator sputtered to life.

"Hey," Sasha said, running over. "What did you do?"

"The boiler's a Humac model P-54-813, right?" Raleigh puffed out his chest a little when Sasha nodded, wide-eyed. "Well, we got the 814 back at the museum. The heating exchange in this line has always been a little temperamental. Sometimes you gotta just…" He slammed his fist into his open palm. "Persuade 'em a little."

" _Da_ , shut up." Sasha waved her hand and shut the hatch.

Raleigh took a step back when she whirled around.

"Ah-ah, you flinched." She smirked and punched him twice on the arm.

 _Geez_ , he thought, rubbing the sore spots, _she could give my schoolyard bullies a run for their money_.

The caravan continued on. Soon, they found themselves in a cavern lit by a chandelier of rock and something bioluminescent. Before Raleigh could bury himself in his work at dinner, a voice piped up from a nearby campfire.

"Hey, Raleigh," Sasha called. "Come sit with us."

It felt like an invitation to sit with the popular kids at school. _Act natural, Raleigh._ He wiped the eager smile off his face and tried not to race over to the campfire.

"You always read that book," Sasha said as he took a seat beside her. "Do you not put it down?"

Raleigh shook his head. "I've waited my whole life to get my hands on this journal. And… well, I guess I get a little carried away. That's what this is all about, right? The discovery, the adventure…"

He looked at the skeptical faces around the campfire. "Unless it's all about the money?"

"Money," they all agreed.

"Guess I set myself up for that one," he chuckled. "So, what are your stories? Sasha, you're, what, 18 and the chief mechanic of a multimillion-dollar expedition?"

Sasha shrugged. "I took this job when Papa retired. He always wanted sons to box and to run machine shop, but he got my sister and me instead. I want to earn money so Papa and I can open our own shop."

"And what about your sister?" Raleigh asked.

"She is undefeated middleweight boxing champion," she said proudly.

To Raleigh's surprise, Kaidonovsky spoke up next.

"You hear of _Potemkin_?" When some of them nodded, he said, "I mutinied with crew. I fled to Romania, then to America. Pentecost hired me. And as you say, rest is history."

The others looked just as impressed as Raleigh felt.

"Do you ever miss home?" Sasha asked him.

Kaidonovsky nodded grimly. "Every day."

Hermann Gottlieb _harrumphed_ when all eyes turned to him. "I was merely forced into the profession."

Newt snickered. Kaidonovsky silenced him with one of his withering glares.

"Tell truth," he said to Hermann.

"Fine." Hermann huffed. "My family owned a flower shop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. One day, there must have been a gas leak at the neighboring butcher's— _boom_!" He struck the ground with his cane for emphasis. "the explosion blew me through the front window."

"The accompanying fire lasted for days," he continued serenely. "It fascinated me. What kind of fire couldn't be extinguished with water and had a liquid fuel source that could stick to any surface? Well, my experiments pushed me into academia. After years of studying and experimenting, I finally found the formula."

"Gottlieb's Fire," Newt explained to the confused faces around the campfire.

"I was getting there," Hermann grumbled.

"Only after you were going to wax poetic about 'mathematical precision' like you always—"

Herc cleared his throat over the bickering of the geologist and demolitions expert. "Pentecost an' I go way back," he said. "Helped me an' my son Chuck come to America after my wife…" He cleared his throat again. "There was nothin' for us in Australia. Expeditions like this pay well. Plus, they've help Chuck recover from his—"

"Grub's up!" Chuck Hansen hollered, carting around a cauldron full of what smelled but didn't look like bean-and-bacon soup. As the cook tried to dish out second helpings to everyone around the campfire, Raleigh couldn't help but notice everyone looked pointedly away from the folded-up sleeve that would've been his right arm.

He doubted he'd get a story out of Chuck.

"Well, don't you worry," Chuck answered the chorus of _no thank yous_. "There's plenty more for breakfast, lunch, and dinner tomorrow."

After forcing themselves to finish dinner, the crew pitched their tents for the night. Raleigh was once again welcomed among the rest of the crew, despite not knowing how to pitch a tent properly. Surprisingly, Hermann was willing to lend a hand.

"Hey, Sasha, what's Newt's story?" He jerked his thumb at the geologist, who had abandoned his tent pitching duties and was cooing at a glowing rock like it was a puppy.

Kaidonovsky answered. "It is better not to ask," he muttered. He glanced at Newt with a scowl. "Trust me."

Sasha said something to Kaidonovsky in Russian, and the stoic medical officer actually cracked a smile.

Raleigh didn't ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing accents is difficult, especially for characters who got only two lines of dialogue. Forgive the inaccuracies!


	5. The Strangers

**THE LAST SCOUTING DAY**

  
The strangers had been easy to find; the rumbling of their machines echoed through the labyrinth of caverns connecting Atlantis to the surface world. Jin had heard the caravan first, and Hu had let him lead the way.

The scouts kept their distance from the gigantic machines and fair-skinned men and women. But every night, they ventured closer to the strangers' camp. In the morning, they waited for the caravan to venture into the darkness before picking through the items left behind.

On the last scouting day, the caravan had made it to the entrance to Atlantis. It was now or never; the scouts snuck into the strangers' camp that night. While the Weis investigated the machines huddled near the bridge, Mako tip-toed among the tents.

She pawed through any bag or pot she could find, hoping to discover food or tools or something that would be useful. An object in one bag caught her eye—a small picture of a young man and a boy standing at what looked like a wharf in the surface world. Both were smiling, and they looked so similar that they could only be family. Brothers, perhaps?

A rustling noise startled Mako, and she dropped the bag on the stone floor. She darted away from the tents, finding Jin and his brothers easily in the darkness. They all watched from behind a boulder as a shadow emerged from one of the tents. A flash of light blinded them and waved wildly around the cavern. And to the scouts' horror, the light disturbed the fireflies slumbering peacefully above them.

Hu didn't have to mutter, "retreat!" They fled the campsite as the creatures swarmed, starting fires that lit the scouts' way to a rocky outcropping high above the tragic scene.

The camp was a pool of flame. Silhouettes scurried around the edges of the blaze, like ants around poison, before racing for the safety of their machines.

"Think they'll make it?" Cheung asked, settling back against the cavern wall.

Hu shook his head. "It's all for the best. They have nothing to offer us."

Mako stared at the flaming tents and machines below. A thousand years ago, she might have slaughtered these strangers in their sleep to keep them from finding Atlantis. But a thousand years ago, Atlantis had been thriving, a beacon of hope for the people who had survived Judgement day.

Now, the royal scouts had to scavenge for food at the outskirts of a crumbling city, relying on wayward strangers to survive. Now, she almost felt sorry for the strangers dying at their doorstep.

But the strangers hadn't given up hope yet. Their machines roared to life and sped across the bridge, toward the entrance to Atlantis.

_Maybe they'll make—_

An explosion drowned out her thoughts. The blast knocked Mako to her feet, and the Weis jumped into a protective ring around her. They could only watch in shock as the scene unfolded below them.

The bridge had collapsed, and the machines that had escaped the blast were rolling backward. The largest, the one leading the caravan, was now threatening to crush the rest of the caravan as it slid down, down, down to the cavern floor.

 _No_. Mako slid under the Weis' spears and dashed along the rocky path, her vision turning crimson and gold as she sped toward the flaming wreckage. Jin was two steps behind her.

"Mako!" He hissed, joining her beside one of the strangers. "It's not safe here."

"They're hurt. We can't just abandon them." Mako motioned to the bloody gash on the blond man's chest. He wasn't moving, but he was still breathing; the fall must have knocked him unconscious.

"Princess, what are you doing?" Hu and Cheung had caught up, and from his tense tone, Hu wasn't thrilled to be so close to these strangers.

Mako huffed. "Just let me—"

The blond man startled, and all four scouts jumped back with spears raised. The stranger looked like he wanted to run, but he grimaced as he tried to push himself off the ground.

Raising a hand and lifting her mask to show him and the Weis that she wasn't a threat, Mako stepped forward to examine the man's wound. It glowed as she gently traced the edges of the gash with her crystal. The man watched wide-eyed as his wound vanished.

Hu cleared his throat, and the four scouts darted back into the shadows, leaving the man behind.

Or so they thought.

"Hey, wait!" So the man spoke English. Behind him, one of the machines rumbled to life. "Who are you? Where are you going? Come back!"

Mako raced after Hu and Cheung, knowing Jin wasn't far behind. But she could hear the stranger's voice echoing off the cavern walls. They hadn't lost him.

Hu darted left once they reached the overlook. Cheung, Mako, and Jin followed close behind. A few seconds later, the blond man raced out of the cavern, slowing as he reached the edge of the ledge and spied the city.

"Hey, wait a minute!" His voice echoed off the rock walls. "Who are you?"

He wasn't alone for long. The roar of the caravan's largest machine got instantly louder as it drilled through the rock wall. The rest of the strangers crawled out of the machine and trickled out of the hole it left behind. All stared in wonder at Atlantis, perched on a small sea surrounded by a blanket of mist.

"This is bad," Jin muttered.

"It's an invasion," Hu agreed.

Mako shook her head. "It's an opportunity." And without waiting for the Weis to convince her otherwise, she crept toward the strangers. The Weis had no choice but to follow. But they approached the strangers with spears raised.

Clearly, the strangers hadn't been expecting them.

"Who are these guys?" A gray-haired man—the leader, judging by his stance at the head of the group—turned to the blond man with suspicion in his eyes.

But there was nothing but relief in the blond man's expression. "They've got to be Atlanteans!"

Mako and Jin shared a look behind their masks. "We are ambassadors of Atlantis," she said in the customary Atlantean greeting. "We are scouts, sent by King Sumako Mori to explore the surface world. Who do you come in the name of?"

The blond man stepped forward and bowed slightly. "We are… explorers. Sent… from—no, sent by… a rich and good man..."

"He speaks our language?" Hu muttered to Mako.

"Apparently." She lifted her mask to address the blond man. "Where did you learn Atlantean?"

"Years... of study. I... learned from… an old book."

"'An old book'...?" Mako shook her head. They would be here all day if they continued speaking Atlantean. She tried another language. "What kind of book?"

The man smirked; so he understood. He, too, tried another language. "A historical account."

Mako played along. "About our humble kingdom?"

"Your language and culture, too."

That piqued Mako's interest. "Oh?"

The blond man nodded. "It's a good thing I brought the book with me. Care to see it?"

"I'd like that."

"Ah, a German speaker!" A small, weasely man elbowed his way into their conversation, interrupting their game of linguistic leap-frog. And then the weasely man had the audacity to grab her hand.

Before Jin or Hu could spear him, Mako shoved the man to the ground. He scurried back to the group of strangers, hiding behind a man with a cane.

"Ha!" The giant of the group boomed. "I like her."

"Finally, someone hits him," one of the blonde women added in accented English. "Sadly, it was not me."

The strangers relaxed, and so did the Weis. Hu stepped forward to greet the strangers in their preferred languages. Cheung wasted no time in talking to the giant and the blonde woman, who seemed to love causing chaos as much as he did.

Jin lingered at Mako's side for a moment.

"I'm okay," she reassured him.

He gave her a doubtful look. Reluctantly, he joined his brothers in introducing himself to the strangers.

Mako sighed. Truth be told, she was disappointed. She had enjoyed the linguistic game, and it seemed like the blond man had, too. But the game was over, and the blond man was now talking with the gray-haired leader.

But not for long. As she rejoined the Weis at the head of the group to escort the strangers to the palace, Mako watched the blond man dart behind one of the smaller machines at the end of what remained of the caravan. When he reappeared at her side, he held an ancient book in his hands.

Mako recognized the rune on the cover instantly.

"As promised," the blond man said. "All I know about Atlantis I learned from this book. Is it accurate?"

Mako gingerly flipped through the pages. There were pictures depicting the kings of the past, clothes the royal family wore for special occasions they no longer celebrated, and delicacies made from food sources that had gone extinct centuries ago. With a sad smile, she returned the book to him.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I can't read Atlantean."

* * *

Mako dreaded facing her father. She knew how he would react. No stranger had made it to Atlantis, let alone met any member of the royal family on their journey. He would turn them away, citing the laws he had made after Judgement Day. Laws that, in Mako's opinion, hurt their people more than the strangers that showed up at their doorstep.

He would be turning away the help they desperately needed. And the answers that Mako desperately wanted—about her mother, her culture, and her recurring nightmares.

As she expected, her father wouldn't budge in his decision. "You know the law, Mako," he told her. "No outsiders may see the city and live."

 _I'm aware,_ she thought. Out loud, she said, "Father, these people may be able to help us."

"We do not need their help."

"But father—"

"That's enough." He struck his cane on the palace floor. "We will discuss this later."

Mako hung her head. _Just once,_ she thought, _I would like to be in control of my own destiny._ Now she would have to turn away the one person who held the secrets of her culture in his hands. But before she could think of what to say, the group's leader spoke up.

"Your majesty," he said in English, "on behalf of my crew, it is an honor to be welcomed to your city."

To his credit, the blond man looked horrified. He tried to warn the leader about his misstep, but the leader ignored him.

Mako's father stiffened. "You presume much," he replied in English, "to think you are welcome here. I know what you're searching for, and you will not find it here. Your journey has been in vain."

However, her father did something unexpected: He agreed to let the strangers stay the night, if only to replenish supplies and prepare for the journey home.

That would give Mako enough time to get the answers she needed.

* * *

Her argument with her father still rang in her ears as she left the king's chambers a couple of hours later. Why couldn't he see reason? Their way of life was dying, and they were turning away the only people who could help them unlock the secrets of their past—a past that the king was adamant about burying.

If the blond man could read Atlantean, then maybe he could translate the runes on the murals all over the city, even the ones that lay at the bottom of the sea. She had to find him and convince him to help her.

And maybe she wanted to test the connection she'd felt between them.

But how would she corner him? The Weis kept a close eye on her when she wasn't within the palace walls. Her father could sense her comings and goings within the palace—his hearing was still excellent, even in his old age. The leader and the blond man now knew she was royal; word had likely spread to the rest of the strangers, too.

She needed a way to draw the blond man away from his people without attracting any attention to herself.

Luckily, she didn't have to come up with a clever plan. She found him lingering outside the palace. Before he could slip away, she locked his wrist and covered his mouth to keep from alerting anyone nearby.

"I have some questions for you," she told him, "and you're not leaving the city until they are answered."


	6. The Lost Civilization

**JUNE 12, 1914**

 

"How did it go?" Kaidonovsky asked as Raleigh, Commander Rourke, and Ms. Sinclair trudged down the palace steps.

Raleigh sighed. "The king and his daughter don't exactly see eye to eye. She seems to like us okay, but the king… I don't know. I think he's hiding something."

"Well, if he's hiding something," Commander Rourke mused, "I want to know what it is."

Ms. Sinclair smirked. "Someone needs to talk to that girl."

"Great idea, Ms. Sinclair. Mr. Becket, you understand their language—"

"—and know their customs—"

"—you've got good people skills—"

"—and boyish charm—"

"—then it's settled." Commander Rourke clapped him on the shoulder. "Good man, Mr. Becket. Thanks for volunteering."

Raleigh blinked to find himself alone outside the palace. He spent the next hour or two pacing around it, rehearsing what he was going to say to the princess when he wasn't marveling at the Atlantean history carved into the palace walls.

As it happened, she came to him.

* * *

Mako, as the princess preferred to be called, led him through a labyrinth of ruins. Only when they reached a secluded clearing did she unleash a barrage of questions: "Are you a scholar? Where do you come from? When did the great floodwaters recede? How did you find out about Atlantis?"

"Woah, woah, woah. I have questions, too, you know. If I answer one of yours, will you answer one of mine?"

"Very well." 

Raleigh grinned. "Well, then. I'm a linguist. I study dead languages, including Atlantean. I didn't think there was anyone else alive who spoke it. Which leads me to my first question: I thought your culture was destroyed—how did all of this get down here?"

Mako crossed her arms. "It's said that the gods became jealous of Atlantis, so they sent a great cataclysm to banish us here. But nobody wants to talk about Judgement Day. All I remember is the sky growing dark, people shouting and running… and then bright light, like a star, floating above the city." 

She grew quiet. "My father said it called my mother to it. I never saw her again."

"I'm sorry to hear that. If it's any consolation, I know how you feel. I lost my brother when I was—wait a minute. You're saying you remember Judgement Day, like you were there?"

"Yes."

"But that would make you… what, 8,500 years old—"

"Yes," Mako said again. She took advantage of his stunned silence to ask one of her questions. "How is it you found this place?"

"Like I said, everything I know about Atlantis I learned from this book."

She snatched the Shepherd's Journal out of his hands and flipped to a page describing the kings of the past. "You can read this?"

"Yes, yes, I can read Atlantean."

"Show me." She stalked to the other end of the clearing, where ivy was crawling up a heap of metal—some sort of vehicle shaped like a fish. Runes were carved in a circle at the top of its head. "No matter what I try, it won't respond."

"Let's see…" Raleigh traced his fingertips over the runes. "'Place crystal into slot'—"

"Yes, I already tried that."

"'Place your hand on the inscription pad'—"

"Yes."

"'Turn the crystal a quarter-turn back'—"

"Yes."

"While your hand was on the inscription pad?"

"... No."

They both watched in awe as the metal creature hummed to life. Brilliant blue light, the same color as the crystal, radiated from underneath Mako's palm and illuminated the vehicle. Slowly, it rose in the air before hovering just a few feet off the ground.

"This is… amazing." Raleigh stepped closer to inspect the glowing inscription pad. "You can show me the city in no time at all. I wonder how fast it—"

The vehicle sped out at his touch and ricocheted off the walls. He and Mako jumped for cover and grimaced as the vehicle careened into a crumbling pillar.

He grinned sheepishly at Mako. "Okay, maybe not."

* * *

Raleigh followed Mako through more ivy-covered ruins, over ancient remains of what must have been homes, and up a giant monolith. The view from the top was incredible. 

Atlantis stretched on for what looked like miles, with steam obscuring the boundaries of the underground sea. Islands of crumbling bridges and the occasional home jutted out of the cerulean waters.

Raleigh collapsed on the mossy rock. After a minute, Mako took a seat beside him.

"Yancy would've loved this place," he said. "Part of me wonders whether I should have waited for him."

Mako didn't speak for some time. "It's been ages since…" She took a deep, shaky breath. "I still hope that one day my mother will walk through the front doors of the palace, like nothing ever happened."

He nodded slowly. "Do you think knowing what happened would make it easier to move on?"

She shrugged. "At least I would know the truth. Right now, I'm not certain about much."

* * *

Mako continued their tour outside the palace walls. She led him past a wharf full of fishing boats returning with their catch, weaved through a bustling market, and ate dinner with the rest of _Striker_ 's crew at the home of one of the palace guards.

Raleigh had done his best to answer Mako's questions, but the language barrier wasn't the only issue. How had she never seen the outside world? Why had the king hidden the truth from her—and her people—for so long? The more Raleigh learned about her, the more he began to take her side, especially as he started seeing the city through her eyes.

"Atlantis was once a thriving city," Mako lamented later, as they watched the fireflies dance in the fading light. "But now our culture is dying." 

She kicked a pebble into the water. Ripples radiated outward and bounced off the half-submerged boulders. "We're like a stone the ocean beats against. With each passing year, a little more of us is worn away."

"I wish there was something I could do."

"That's why I brought you to this place. There's a mural here, with writing all around it. You can help me understand what it says."

Raleigh glanced at the bare stone walls around them. "I'd be happy to. But where…"

A splash distracted him.

"Uh, Mako?"

"You can swim, right?" She was standing up to her waist in the water. The glowing crystal around her neck dyed the rippling surface and her fitted tunic teal.

"Yeah, I can swim." He tossed his jacket and sweater on the same rock as her dark cloak. Despite the cold water, he could feel his face flush.

"Good. It's a long way to reach that mural."

He took a deep breath and dove in after her.

The mural Mako was talking about was near the edge of the sea and far below the surface. Raleigh could only read a few words at a time before having to go up for air. But what he and Mako learned was worth it.

"It's the heart of Atlantis," he said breathlessly after the umpteenth trip to the surface. "That's what the Shepherd was talking about. It wasn't a star, it was some kind of crystal, like the one you're wearing." 

He took another gulp of air. "The power source I've been looking for and the bright light you remember—they're the same thing. And that's what keeping you, and all of Atlantis, alive."

Mako frowned. "Then where is it now?"

"I don't know. You'd think something that important would have been in the Shepherd's Journal. Unless…"

Unless there was a page missing.

Well, what did he expect? The Journal was hundreds of years old. It had been lost for generations. Why wouldn't it be missing pages?

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't an accident. Unfortunately, his doubts were confirmed when he and Mako returned to shore. Waiting for them on the rocky beach were all two dozen survivors from _Striker_. 

And all of them were armed. 


End file.
